Les Petits Chefs make dumplings with Chef Vanessa Yeung

This week, Les Petits Chefs had the privilege of working with Chef Vanessa Yeung, Chef/ Partner of Aphrodite Cooks. Vanessa’s culinary journey began as a cook in catering companies in and around the Toronto area. Desiring a deeper knowledge and understanding of food, she applied to the Stratford Chefs School.

Vanessa graduated with the Award of Culinary Excellence and a prestigious apprenticeship at one of Canada’s top restaurants, Scaramouche. It was there she honed her skills and her palate, to understand that sometimes simplicity is the road to perfection. After her time as a research and development chef at one of Canada’s largest food manufacturing companies, Vanessa felt her true calling was catering and providing personal chef services. She has catered to the Hospital for Sick Children, York University, University of Toronto and the Credit Union of Ontario. Vanessa has also worked as a private chef to some of Toronto’s most prestigious professional athletes. If you live in or near Toronto, check out the schedule for the cooking classes at Aphrodite Cooks. I first met Vanessa when I sat in on a day at the kids’ cooking classes at Nella Cucina last summer and right away, I knew she would make an excellent guest chef for my little guys.

The boys were excited to make dumplings with Vanessa – she certainly picked fabulous recipes to keep many little hands busy! Under Vanessa’s calm and gentle guidance, we made Vegetarian Soi Gau “Water Dumplings” and Ginger Chicken Potstickers.

I love the way the boys just dive in there and tackle any task that is given to them. I think we can learn a lot from their attitude – there’s never “I can’t do it”, it’s always “What’s next?”

Yup, we’re getting VERY good at mincing garlic!

The boys worked with some unusual (to them) ingredients this week – bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.

And we watched as the greens magically dwindled to nothing…

The boys made adjustments to the recipes based on the fact that I couldn’t get a hold of all the ingredients necessary and ended up making triangular vegetable dumplings instead of little bundles. They worked just as well.

Meanwhile, over at “Team Chicken”, the boys enjoyed the “gross” factor of the raw chicken….

But did a SPECTACULAR job assembling the potstickers…

Aren’t these amazing???

Meanwhile, over in “Team Gluten Free”, Vanessa showed Will how to make his own dumpling dough using tapioca flour. Again, I am so impressed with what a great job he did!

Totally professional looking dim sum dumplings!!!

And the taste? I only got a nibble at a couple of the chicken potstickers but they were really really good. As in, I need to try these at home. Not sure I can assemble them as professionally as the boys but I can try!

Chef Vanessa has kindly agreed to share the recipe for the vegetable water dumplings with you all – I highly recommend you make these. If you have kids, get them involved too!

Dumplings are very addictive, aren’t they? You can’t quite tell when you’ve had enough. Those dumplings are fantastic. I like the way the wontons are wrapped like tortellini. Love those pot sticker wrappers.

As for wine pairings, I’d go classic with something off-dry. Riesling (Alsace/Germany) is the traditional match, but as we’re entering the summer months here in the northern hemisphere, you might want to try a rose – but again with slightly more residual sugar. For those who favour the exotic, Gewurztraminer is worth a shot: but very much an acquired taste, that.

No wonder you are so proud of *your boys*, they did awesome in this class with Vanessa and she was wonderful to come and share her expertise with them. I love seeing that the boys were able to do all the prep work for these and yes, their pot stickers are beautifully assembled. Great job everyone! Mardi I love all the great culinary experiences and fantastic people you are exposing these young chefs to.

I LOVE this post. The pictures are easy to follow and the colors pop. The writing bursts with pride for your students. I was wondering: do they read the blog? Do their parents? Also, its amazing to consider that you have a well-known chef, three different dumplings being made and you still get to take so many wonderful pictures. Great job.

Mardi, I’m just too lazy to make dumplings from scratch so I give full marks to your boys! You hit it on the head why kids love gruesome stuff like raw chicken, ha, ha! I would like to try the ones with tapioca flour not that soon though, can I ‘borrow’ your boys?

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